Waxing Electric

More liberties taken all around, including diseases with very little info and therapies. Kindly stretch the suspension of disbelief. Also, I have no idea if anyone has ever used EMS therapy on Joker—or if it would actually help instead of break him. Hopefully, I'm being original. (If not, please rec! I would love to read! Joker is awesome.)

"The Commander wanted to talk to you before you left, Alenko."

Kaidan frowned at that, hoping Shepard wasn't backing out of meeting with him and Williams at the Embassy Lounge that evening after they checked into their quarters at Hawksmoor. He looked up at the Normandy's pilot as Joker gingerly navigated the stairwell much like a puppy learning how to navigate stairs would. Though they didn't emit dark energy, Kaidan felt the low hum of a mass effect field from Joker's braces from where Kaidan stood at the center of the stairwell. The pilot had turned up the frequency higher than usual. It made Kaidan's teeth itch.

"Do you know where she is?"

Joker met his gaze with a frown. "Comm Room." He took another step, first with both crutches, then one foot, then the other. "Quit staring."

Kaidan wondered who or what tied Joker's panties in a knot. Then thought maybe it was because the pilot had to leave the ship for Liberty. God forbid that he had to go to port with the rest of them. Their orders had been clear as mud: Rear Admiral Mikhailovich and his engineering team had full run of the ship during inspection. Kaidan suspected that Shepard didn't want a confrontation between the crew and Mikhailovich's pukes. Having only met the man once, the biotic was especially thrilled that Shepard had made the call.

But, if Joker wanted to be pissy about it, then Kaidan could be pissy right back. He knew Joker wouldn't take his shit anyway. "I wasn't. I'm waiting. You're taking up the whole damn stairwell." The badminton game of shit flinging had begun.

Joker didn't bat an eye, but instead took another step. "Then use the other one, dumb ass." His voice was strained. Kaidan pointedly ignored the breach in protocol and wondered if the pilot was in some kind of pain.

"I was here first." He leaned against the railing, crossing his feet, waiting for the next round.

"You were—" Joker broke off and glared at him. "Glad to see I have a friend, Alenko."

Kaidan shrugged, feeling like he'd just kicked his friend down the stairs. "Then don't accuse me of staring."

The pilot huffed but was silent continuing to creep down—both crutches first, then one foot and then the other. L2 Biotic with combat training: one; Pilot with creaky legs: zero. Way to go, Alenko. When he was almost to Kaidan's position, the biotic turned and went back down the stairs, stopping at the bottom and waiting for Joker to arrive. It wasn't verbalized, but the routine had slowly developed over the course of their tour of duty if they happened to meet while going up or down the stairs—in case Joker fell, Kaidan could use his biotics to catch the Normandy's chief helmsman before any damage could be done. Joker didn't usually complain, and Kaidan never pressed the subject.

"I'll be at the embassy lounge later if you want to have a beer with us," Kaidan told him when Joker had arrived at the final step.

The scruffy pilot cocked his head to the side, his hazel eyes boring into Kaidan's skull. "Us?"

"The Commander and Williams." Kaidan tried to sound nonchalant about it. "They coerced me into two rounds."

"Dog." Joker's grin was lecherous.

Kaidan snorted and added an eye roll for good measure. "I wish." The best way to deny something was to admit to it sarcastically. "Join us if you want," he added sincerely. He trudged up the stairs without waiting for a reply and palmed the access panel, hoping his face wasn't as red as it felt.

"I'll comm you," Joker's voice followed him through the door.

When Kaidan arrived in the Comm Room, Shepard was speaking with a life-sized holo of Captain Anderson.

"Contact me later, Anderson," Shepard was saying, her body tense. Kaidan wondered if he should step back out and wait, but figured they were almost done. "We can discuss it in detail."

The Captain sighed. "Don't be stubborn about this, Shepard. It's a practicality. You report to the Council now. Not to Fifth Fleet."

"My crew reports to Fifth Fleet," she argued. "Just because I'm a Spectre—" She began, but stopped and took a breath. "Forward the information to my omni-tool," she relented.

Anderson's holo-visage smiled. "It isn't so bad."

"Above my pay grade, Captain," she muttered. "Literally."

"It's better than staying at Hawksmoor." With that, Anderson's image winked out, and Shepard turned to face Kaidan. She gave him a forced smile.

"You wanted to speak with me, Commander?" He was not going to ask what the conversation was about. She was Anderson's protégé. Everyone knew that. Whatever it was, it wasn't his business. He was envious at the rapport the two shared though, like a father/daughter relationship or even… even something more—a black snake of jealousy coiled around Kaidan's heart at the thought.

She regarded him somberly a moment before she spoke. "I owe you an apology, Alenko."

"No, you don't." He had no idea what the Commander could have possibly done to apologize to him and silently begged her not to be saying that she wasn't joining him for a drink. That she would be spending time with Captain Anderson now that he was Udina's attaché. The snake was taking large bites of his heart now. Kaidan's chest was beginning to ache.

She shook her head. "Yeah, I do. I've—I've not been myself as of late. Edolus got to me, and I've been behaving unprofessionally." She gave an exasperated sigh and ran her fingers through the dark strands of hair that framed her face. "What's your opinion of the last mission?"

He blinked. Hadn't they already gone over this? "Edolus?" She nodded, scooped up her sea bag and shouldered it.

"I know what you said before," she told him, indicated for them to leave, "I want to know the off-record version."

They fell in line together, walking up the gangway to exit the room as he thought about it a moment. "Hell, Commander, we took on a thresher maw on foot. And we survived. I don't know what surprises me more. If you hadn't been there…" He shuddered. The mission would have gone to hell, of that he was certain. He'd never seen a thresher nest before. Not in the field anyway. "Well, you saw what happened to Kahoku's unit."

Shepard frowned as they made their way off CIC and to the airlock. And Kaidan knew that his Commander somehow felt responsible for their deaths. It had been written all over her face in the debriefing and in her actions over the transit from the Artemis Tau Cluster to the Citadel. It worried him. She was a strong woman. He wondered how much more she could take before she snapped. She was lucky not to be an L2.

The Raid on Mindoir. N7 training. Akuze. The beacon on Eden Prime. The overload on Feros. The Cipher. And those were just things that he knew about. Many a man would have snapped already. He was certain he would have.

The airlock cycled open, and they stepped into it. The door closed and D-Con started. It itched worse without gear.

She was a graduate of the N program. There were probably things that she had seen and done that were worse than a thresher—or pretty damn near close. As usual when he was around her, he had to fight the basic urge to want to protect her. Wrex was right, if it came down to Kaidan and Shepard in a fight, she would win. Kaidan wouldn't even put up a fight.

But the crux of the matter was: She cared too much. It was something he admired about her. Even on Eden Prime she had been gentle with his feelings after Jenkins death. It was also her weakness. Something anyone who knew her could easily exploit.

"You… you can't save everyone, Shepard," he told her quietly. "Ma'am. You can only do so much."

Shepard regarded him coolly a moment as they waited for the airlock to pressurize and D-Con to stop. Alenko was right, but her anger was justified. Good men had died for… for what? Politics? Greed? It didn't matter the reason, she supposed as they stood there listening to the VI's metallic voice, she was still going to put those responsible to justice. She was a Spectre now and she had the power and capability to do it. Even if she had to look under every rock on every planet in the Traverse. There was no way she was going to let some damned political agenda end the lives of good soldiers. There were causes better than credits to fight for.

Saving the Galaxy from Saren was one.

She took a breath. "It doesn't make it any easier, Alenko." He nodded, and said nothing, only continued to gaze at her, waiting for her to speak. She liked the play of light over his thick head of hair. "Saren's our top priority," she told him finally, irritated that the Lieutenant continued to affect her in ways she hadn't felt in years, "but I'm going to find those responsible for this."

"Revenge, ma'am?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She shook her head. "Just because I can legally execute whoever I think deserves it, doesn't mean I have to. The media can do so much more damage than a mass accelerator any day."

"Ouch," the Lieutenant said, a grin stretching across his lips that made her pulse speed up. "Remind me to stay on your good side, Commander."

Eldfell-Ashland Energy mining company was pulling out Therum. Liara was assailed by a terrible sense of bitterness. After all this time, she had less than two weeks left to find something worthwhile. All because of human politics and a volcano. Tagging along with various mining companies had both its pros and its cons. Mostly cons, now that she thought about it.

Liara gave a frustrated sigh as she logged yet another component of an artifact that was wildly out of place in the Prothean ruins. She made a note of it on her data pad affixing her thumbprint for verification.

It wasn't Prothean origin. The design was too intricate, the markings too geometrical. A thrill went up her spine. There were others. Another dead technologically-savvy species perhaps? What killed them? How did they die? What were they called? Did they die out all at the same time, or was a gradual extinction? Other questions surfaced.

Oh, how she wished she could gather more evidence. Then the university would back a full-fledged dig, and she could possibly find the answers she so desperately wanted. She had to know!

A deafening explosion clouded her thoughts. Liara's head shot up, and she gazed around with wide eyes. By the Goddess! Reflexively, the scientist called up her biotic barrier as silicate rained down. It wasn't the burning scent of sulfur that invaded her senses.

That… that wasn't Santorini Mons…

What unnerved her more than thinking that she was about to be covered in molten rock was the fact that the very air smelled of ozone and metal. She felt mass effect fluctuations in the gravitational field well before she saw the heavily armored krogan encased in his biotic shield.

A krogan? Here?

"Saren requires your presence," the krogan grumbled, his leathery head menacing. He was flanked by several machine-like creatures. She blinked. Were those…

"Geth?" she verbalized.

"Come quietly or fight," the krogan told her, ignoring her question but confirming it at the same time. He looked her up and down. "A fight sounds fun. Never fought an asari commando before."

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "I'm a scientist." A fight most definitely did not sound fun, but she would not let herself be put down by this brute. And why did Saren, a renown Spectre "require her presence"? Why did Saren send krogan and geth to collect her? She was an archeologist who specialized in the Prothean Extinction. What could they possibly want with her?

The krogan wagged his head, looked at her with one eye, then the other. "A shame."

"What does Saren want?" Liara had her biotics, but didn't carry any other kind of weapon. She never needed to. One of the pros of traveling with mining companies.

The krogan grunted. "What do I look like, a messenger?"

For some reason, the infirmary was the coldest room on the ship (and the good doctor made it her specialty to strip each and every one who walked through her door). Joker sat relaxed—stripped to his skivvies and his teeth practically chattering—on the first medical cot in the infirmary with his diseased legs hanging off its edge and wiggling his bare toes at Dr. Chakwas who was administering his therapy. He hated the infirmary as much as he hated the idea of leaving the ship to the ministrations of Rear Admiral Mikhailovich's bilge rats.

"My, but you're in a mood today," Dr. Chakwas commented dryly. Joker was sure she purposely pulled the hair just below his kneecap with an electrode patch that was being difficult in placement. He was just stubborn enough with his condition not to shave his legs bare for the daily administration of his therapy. It made him good and grouchy for all those unlucky enough to be present. Chakwas always pulled his hair attaching the sticky-backed wired patches.

"I'm the epitome of pleasantness, my good woman." The tone of his voice was anything but pleasant. Dr. Chakwas only gave him a knowing smile as she applied another electrode patch for the electrical muscle stimulation of his bare right leg—and, of course, ripped out more hair. Witch.

Joker inwardly cringed when the infirmary door cycled open and the sound of boots stomped through to the medi-gel dispenser directly behind him. He wondered who it was that decided that now would be a good time to visit the infirmary for corpsman candy, if they were going to give him a hard time, and if he outranked them enough to give them a hard time back.

And if he really cared that rank may or may not be involved. Most of the senior officers on board knew better than to—

"Hello, Chief Williams," Dr. Chakwas greeted the person behind him as the doctor applied an electrode patch to Joker's left leg. Again he was sure she was purposely pulling hair.

Had he the ability, Joker would have gotten up and bolted for the storage room on the other side of the infirmary. Williams was the last person he wanted to see him during his daily EMS therapy session. Sitting as he was in only his underwear—why and how the good doctor seemed to find excuses to undress him for such a routine thing was beyond his comprehension—with wires attached to his legs via hair-pulling patches and without the use of his braces or crutches, he could only wait patiently—or not—until the Chief left.

And it wasn't like he could run very well with his braces or crutches anyway. His previous attempts had all ended in dramatic bouts of pain. And though he lacked any type of medical education, Joker was quite sure he was allergic to pain. The bolt in his right shin from attempting to dance at graduation from flight school still gave him problems from time to time, and there were other various insertions that held his brittle bones together in places.

"Hey, doc." There was a snap-hiss of the dispenser and then a grunt of frustration, the boots shuffled closer and Joker inwardly cringed again. "The candy machine's out."

"I've placed an order with the quartermaster," Chakwas told the younger woman not looking up from applying the electrodes. It wasn't like it would help her not pull what little hair was left on Joker's legs. Might as well call EMS therapy Free Leg Waxing. "The Commander said that she would pick them up since she would be in Bachjret Ward later. You may wish to accompany her if your medical interface has completely run dry."

Again, the boots shuffled closer and Gunnery Chief Williams appeared in Joker's peripheral vision. "You alright, Joker?" She appeared to be studying his legs, though he could have sworn her dark eyes darted up and lingered on his bare chest. Wishful thinking, idiot.

He regarded her from the corner of his vision. "Never better, doll."

Then he visibly winced when the doctor turned on the Evil Electro-Machine of Doom. That wasn't what the doctor called the electronic device to which he was attached, no, but it worked for him. The muscles in his legs began to twitch at the same time as electricity jumped through the electrodes in patterns that simulated exercise. It didn't really hurt; it was more or less an irritating, tingling itch that flared over the entirety of his legs. As usual, the initial jolt was uncomfortable, and no matter that he'd been having this therapy done since his was three and was well prepared for the jolt, it always surprised him. Always.

He hated it. The therapy. The electrodes. The twitchy itch. The braces. The crutches. The questions. The stares. Joker hated it all.

"So, what are you doing?"

He gazed up at the red lights of the overhead momentarily as he rolled his hazel eyes. Oh, yeah. Hated it.

"Exercising." He leaned back on his elbows to relieve some pressure in his pelvis from his feet dangling off the cot. When he looked at her, her eyes weren't on his legs, but on his shoulders and the bunched muscles of his arms. Then her gaze raked across his chest and up to his face. Joker's mouth suddenly went bone dry and the room no longer had an arctic chill. Not fair.

"Funny way to exercise, isn't it?" And the room went from overly hot to subzero, just like that. This was not on his To-Do List for quality time with Williams. And here he'd been actually looking forward to going to the Embassy Lounge with Alenko.

He studied her a moment, found himself staring at her generous mouth. She was waiting for an answer.

Finally he relented and grumbled, "The gerbil gym isn't my style."

She only raised a brow.

Didn't she know how to take a hint? Irritated that Williams wasn't going to leave him to "exercise" in peace, he sat up and gave her a narrow, glinting glance, annoyance evident in his voice and the way he pointed at her. "Look, you sit on your ass all day and see if the muscles in your legs don't atrophy after awhile."

She blinked at him, surprised. He didn't know if she was surprised with the revelation or the venom in his voice, so he continued for the hell of it, "Compound that with specially built braces that negate the mass of my legs so that I can get around easier and my hips won't break…" He shrugged, pointed to his legs. "No mass, no muscles. Electric Muscle Stimulation." He resisted the urge to say, "duh." She didn't know. This conversation had never come up before.

"Will your hips break if you walk without the braces?"

Joker let out a low groan from the back of his throat. His pelvis was more or less bolted to his spine in places from where he had either fallen as a child or from growing up in general. Should never have—but he did. And now, he really could be an ass because he outranked her. That thought made his day, and he opened his mouth to spout a vat of venom at the unsuspecting Chief, but Dr. Chakwas spoke up.

"Ashley, don't you have a medi-gel patch that needs to be removed?"

Williams blanched. "No way. I'm not stripping." She crossed her arms over her ample chest much like a pouting child would. Naturally, Joker appraised the merchandise without really thinking about it as he wondered where she had been injured that required stripping. Several places came to mind without much effort. The thought heated his blood.

Knowing the doctor, however...

"Now, that's something I'd pay to see," he said with a grin.

The shade her lovely round face turned was just as intriguing as the daggers she glared at him. Joker's day just got a little brighter. Fuck Mikhailovich. The Gunnery Chief was hot when she was angry.

"What?" He cocked his head to the side, wondering what shade she would turn next. "I would."

Yeah, he would definitely be joining Alenko at the Embassy Lounge.